"I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all." -- Richard Wright

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip." -- Elmore Leonard

"I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter." -- James Michener

"The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say." -- Mark Twain

"Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind." -- Catherine Drinker Bowen

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make." -Truman Capote